my 31 1/2 hour day

it was long.
it was tiring.
it was fun.

the day started saturday morning at 6:30. i had awoken from only 4 1/2 hours of sleep. the night prior, ben taylor and i had went to the zoo bar. we heard some really good blues music. my friend paul was there so he got to meet ben. some ladies there bought me a drink, just out of the blue. it was fruity. back to saturday...

admittedly, i showed up to men's prayer group a little on the tired side. prayer group was good. scott seebohm is going to south korea in a week. wow! afterward, i had a nice little chat with roark. he just happened to be at the church, cleaning up for a wedding that afternoon. then i left to hang out with jonathan. i should let it be known that i had expected saturday to be a looooong day based on how many things were going on and what i had scheduled.

jonathan and i, though roomies, don't always spend enough time together. our schedules are misaligned. that's nothing new to me, having lived with nathaniel and roark before. i really value the time with jonathan and wish there was some more schedule alignment during the weeks. well, he was making pies for a gathering he was going to later that night. the house smelled very good. we discussed our days and what we had planned to be doing. we sat down and prayed together. did i eat a bowl of cereal? i don't remember. i'd say it wasn't quite 11:15am yet. off to joie's.

joie had asked if i would help her with a support letter she is working on. she wanted to add some pictures of children and orphanage stuff to the letter. she's going to guatemala this summer! she shared a banana (with peanut butter) and a smoothie. we hunted around online to find a picture of guatemala. we found one and tried to resize it a little but were having some difficulty using the program that was on brook's laptop. i managed to find a map of guatemala and erase the words and the surrounding countries. next, i drew an outline around the country with a paintbrush tool. i took bits of the outline out by using the paintbrush tool with the white color. the end result looks really nice. it took awhile to do though. and then, looking around for pictures of people and lifestyle in guatemala, joie and i ran across a picture of guatemala that was nothing more than a black outline of the shape of it. we laughed. it was what we were looking for and had we found it earlier, we'd not have had to do the amount of work we already did. lol. sometimes it works out that way. she printed off the picture i had worked on so i could take it with me and come up with some ideas. the next event on the list was the nebrasks vs texas baseball game. i headed towards the haymarket.

i parked under the o street overpass, hoped i'd not get a parking ticket (i didn't pay the meter), and began walking. immediately, i saw aaron and amber. they actually saw me first. they were also going to the game. not a block away, i saw tim shrog getting out of his car. we chatted briefly. he was going to scooter's. i think jonathan saw him there later. not quite a block away again, i ran into a bartender from o'rourke's. he was at the oven having lunch with his wife and son. we chatted briefly also. i was excited at having run into all these random encounters. and then, about a block and a half this time, melissa hieder calls out my name. she was at maggie's with kaysha (did i say that name right?). to review, that's four unexpected encounters within three blocks. wow! there are so many lives going on at the same time.

i should have gotten a nasty, greasy, ketchup mustard relish onions mayonaise and pickle smothered hot dog from a vendor in the haymarket but i was too focused on getting a place to sit on the grass in the general admission section. i was to save spots for dave magee, aaron and amber, ben davy, and dave's father (who is hilarious!) and younger brother. elijah was there with family tailgating but i knew if i walked through the parking to find him, i'd not get a good place to sit. turns out he was already inside the ballpark. i saw him after i sat down. there was a strong breeze from the south. i remember watching a bird try to fly into it. the bird started just past the third base line and flew until it was out of energy. he made it to about first base. poor guy. he had to rest. but then later, he tried it again. he should have just walked and he would have gotten to where he was going faster. amber commented that the day was absolutely perfect for a baseball game. i agreed. i said it was also perfect for sailing. i left just before the fifth inning, just as jesse davy showed up. it's a nebraska game. in nebraska. a sea of red. up walks jesse in a GREEN shirt. it was awesome. you could have spotted him anywhere. i had about 20 minutes to get to john's piano recital/lecture.

i was a little late. melissa hieder was waiting outside the recital hall. there was a sign that said "do not enter until applause". i didn't want to miss anything though. then mike freitag showed up. then adam parks showed up. i opened the door and walked in just as john was getting up from the piano and walking (my direction) to the podium. i hope it didn't throw him off or anything. it didn't sound like it did. john is really good on the piano. he's a smart kid and it showed by the research he had done. afterwards, everyone was invited to a meal at embassy suites. IT WAS AWESOME! and not just the food either. the time with people was really good. i thoroughly enjoyed being there and i laughed a lot. there was no clock to be found in the recital hall or in the banquet hall in embassy suites. i had no idea what time it was and that was a good thing. i didn't want to start feeling tired any earlier than necessary. jay and liz invited me over to look at engagement photos so that is where i went next.

dave magee had taken the photos for them. they were taken at pioneer's park. and they are very good. it was good to sit with jay and liz as they were being shown to me and getting their commentary on them. i can't wait 'till october 20th. weeeeeeeeee!

i decided to go to meadowlark and be somewhat still and quiet for a while before heading over to the davy's. what was it? about 8pm then? many commented that i had gotten some sun. my friend laura was there. she told me a bunch of her friends were going to be at 80's night so i had to be there. i assured her i would. then i ordered a carmel machiato and downloaded some songs in an attempt to rebuild my music library. i was invited to a party out in the country north of town but had to decline. within an hour of showing up, i left.

north! to the davy's! full speed ahead! i was anxious to watch a movie on ben's bigscreen. there were a number of people there. we watched a couple of monty python skits and listened to slam poetry too. crystal told me that yet more money was received for the talent show. holy cow! something like $1200 - $1300 total now. god gives. again, holy cow! i found out that nebraska lost the baseball game. the movie played that night was the incredible hulk. it was a good time because of all the commentary. lol. everything wrapped up about 1am-ish. okay. so now i've been up for 18 1/2 hours. any normal person would have been going home to bed.

with the exception of meadowlark (which still wasn't time for just me by myself), i now had time to slow down. you see, i was helping the andersons with their sunday morning paper route. they were out of town and had trouble finding someone to do it. i told them i could help them out. mark said i had to pick up the papers from the lincoln journal star downtown, insert various things, fold them, and bag them. with my time to kill, i wanted to eat. deleon's, YEAH! but there was at least 8 cars ahead of me. so i settled for amigo's. :yuck: and pulled into the lincoln journal star parking lot about twenty to 2am. the weather was absolutely perfect. 2 rolled around and i got in line with those already there. since i'd not been through this before, i watched what others were doing. i did the same. when i was given my papers i rolled my cart over to a table and then went to get the inserts and the comics. there weren't any bags and i was scared to ask for them because i thought they'd charge the andersons some how. well, that's not how it works. bags probably cost $.0001 apiece, so they gave them freely (get it? freely? ha ha ha). i stuffed, folded, and bagged about 140 papers. and sunday papers are the biggest. my hands were blackened with newspaper ink. i was about to leave. the people there doing what was routine to them are definately a different and unique crowd. i badly wanted to do a documentary on them. the papers entirely filled the hatchback of my car. **i took a pic. see sunday's post.** the entire process took longer than i thought it would. the time on my car stereo read 3:15am.

linda has an awesome map made up for the route and i was very thankful for that. i took a napkin from the amigo's bag and jammed it into the latch of the hatchback so that it could not close. it would have been a pain to pull the hatch release lever to open it every time i stopped. i had no idea how i was going to do the paper route and knew that i could only sit there and come up with ideas. but nothing would play out until i started doing it. at first i tried driving up to each individual house, getting out, and tossing a paper on the porch. but that took too long. and i was worried about my car. stop, go, stop, go. DRIVE, PARK, DRIVE, PARK. i began to leave the car in neutral when i stopped and pulled the Ebrake to keep it still. i parked in the middle of the street and grabbed the papers i needed. to make things fun and to hurry along, i ran quite a bit. it was fun! i have this super bright flashlight that brittan gave me that i brought along. i needed it to see the map (dome light is burned out in my car and i've not changed the bulb) and some of the addresses on the houses would have been impossible to see without the flashlight. i saw two cats in windows and shined the light at them. their eyes glowed like cat eyes glow, but they did not move an inch. kings of their castles they were and not the least afraid of the paperboy. the lincoln journal star shorted me two papers so i picked up some from a newspaper machine after getting change at a walgreen's and drinking a ruby red grapefruit juice. i finished up (very anxious to) around 5:30 - 5:45am. almost 24 hours without sleep, on 4 1/2 hours of sleep.

it wasn't me who was keeping me going. and no, it wasn't drugs. i believe the lord listened to my, and others', prayers. though at any time i could have chosen to call it quits or lay down for a bit. the sun wasn't up yet but it was on its way up. i rushed home and made some hot tea and went out to watch it rise. i think i awoke jonathan in the commotion. i told him what i was doing and left. **look at the pics in sunday's post of the sunrise** home to shower then, off to church, watch caleb wallace fey's baptism, help out with children's church, stay for food and celebration for caleb and lori and kyle. i was invited to help move a piano but was getting to the point where i could hardly lift the plastic fork with food on it. i arrived home a little after 2 in the afternoon. i remember thinking, "it's sunday! i want to be with people!" i really wasn't tired, like sleep tired, but i was physically tired. pooped. i mean, I was pooped, not that i went number two.

i woke up at 5:55pm. and felt like i'd slept for days. i felt great. completely rejuvinated. i thought i'd lay back down though and keep resting. for two hours, it was off and on. then a decent hour of sleep. then an hour of just laying there awake...thinking. i got out of bed and blogged. the first piece of jonathan's pecan pie went to my stomach and i coupled it with some hot tea. jonathan called then. he was on his way home. i was about to head out to go dancing, but i wanted to stay and talk with him a bit. then, i went dancing. it was great. but i am sore today. too sore to ride my bike into work. shucks!

so this weekend i was up for 31 1/2 hours straight. the time was amazing! so much happened, so much went on. how many people did i interact with? many, many, many. it was so good. but two things: one, it's not good for one to stay up so long without sleep (any fool can tell you that) and two, i'm not doing another sunday morning paper route any time soon. cheers . . ..